


Before the Bombs

by sepulchralseneschal



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Compulsive Heterosexuality, F/M, Gen, Turning random terminal entries into full blown OCs to give the world more depth, also some strong anti-fascist tones because that's what fallout's all about
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-03 20:22:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16332836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sepulchralseneschal/pseuds/sepulchralseneschal
Summary: A prologue setting up the hollow yet picturesque pre-war lives of Robin and Julius Uttridge, inhabitants of Vault 111 and future Sole Survivers in their own, discrete stories.





	1. Evening, Sunshine

The room gave the impression of being smaller than it was. The black floors and ceiling seemed to squash the space down; to make the air, already sick with the greenish yellow lights, heavy and close. The walls were unpainted steel, their soft corners curving snug around the circle of chairs the farmer had set up. 

She had met Edward Gray, the roboticist, at a cocktail party once. Her firm had just won a billion-dollar malpractice case and their client, suddenly recovered from his so-called grievous condition, had thrown the function. The team leaders sent a memo to all legal staff that it was imperative to attend and take advantage of the networking opportunities, the frothing sycophants. She went in a state of silent rebellion, with uncurled hair and naked lips, and lurked at the bar all night, downing several whiskey sours. As a result, she lost the reins on her attitude sometime during the evening, and when a random stranger with patches on his blazer began boasting about his pet engineering project she couldn’t help but help but poke. 

“Oh, sounds to me like a philosophical facsimile of Sunshine Tidings.” She’d said.

The man turned red and opened his mouth, and what tumbled out was a barely contained tirade in which he produced a litany of criticisms against the theory of AI self-actualization, collectivist ideologies, and the absurdity of a laymen - worse, _english majors_ \- who had the arrogance to believe they could understand either. Dr. Gray painted a picture of them all as chem-addled dissidents, bitter and contrary, stirring up shit for the hell of it. But standing in the room that day, looking at this man, Robin saw no truth in those words.

The farmer was soft, the way a pair of pants gets soft after one too many washings; faded and rumpled and worn thin in places. But comfortable. Familiar. His face was etched deep with lines that had come before their time, indicating a life of smiling, of squinting in the sun, and yes, judging from the tie-dyed shirt under his overalls, of chems. But who didn’t like a party now and then?

He hovered in the back of the room by the food - blueberry scones and sun tea - and from time to time someone would approach him and he would listen to them talk with a benign expression. The only hint of anxiety was in his hands, which hung stiffly at his sides as if he’d just gotten them and didn’t quite know where they went.

Others may have been comfortable enough to go around and gladhand, but for her the circle of chairs was as impassable as the Grand Canyon, so she sat in the emptiest space she could find and pretended to read the pamphlet she’d been handed. After a few minutes a crisp pair of slacks slid into the seat beside her, and she looked up to see a pleasant, earnest face. She smiled.

“Mr. Holbrook.”

The man returned her smile and cast his eyes down, hiding them beneath long, dark lashes. “Please Mrs. Uttridge. Call me Arthur.”

“Only if you return the favor.”

“Very Well. Robin. How is, er, how is Sanctuary treating you?”

Robin paused for a moment, choosing her words carefully. “...It’s bucolic.”

“Ah, good. Good to hear you reconsider the investment. It is, by all accounts, a wonderful neighborhood.”

“The neighborhood? Christ no; nothing worth considering there. But there’s some hiking trails out behind it.” 

Arthur nodded along to her words, the corners of his mouth turning down in a shrugging expression. He’d always been clean shaven at work, but this late in the day a thick stubble had grown in and in its shadow she saw dimples.

“Anyway. How’s the mortgage business treating you?”

“Oh. Ah. I really shouldn’t complain...”

“But Arthur, isn’t that the entire point of these meetings?”

His mouth twitched and his eyes pinched, but when he looked at her face and saw her smiling, he relaxed – truly relaxed – for the first time since she’d met him. His shoulders slumped back against the chair and his hips slipped forward in his seat, bony hands laid limp on the tops of his thighs.

“I’m glad you came. I was worried I had...hmm...misread...your interest.”

She chuckled. “You mean you were worried I would turn you in.”

“It is a very real danger.”

“Well,” She tilted her head. “I’m honored by your trust.”

Arthur opened his mouth as if to say something, but then reconsidered it, and chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment before trying again. “And how is your hus-”

But before he could finish that question which Robin had come to dread, the farmer cleared his throat and stepped into the circle of chairs, which had nearly all been filled. He spread his hands in a gesture that was probably meant to be humble but looked a little imperious, like Jesus condescending to heathens.

“Friends. Compatriots. Comrades. I’m so, so glad that you could join us. So truly happy that there are so many in this world who understand the very real threat...” And here he formed his hands into fists, and held them together in front of him. His voice trembled with feeling. “...that the capitalist poses to the bonds between our fellow men .”

Robin settled in for what she suspected would be a long sermon. She crossed her legs and let the back of her heel dangle in midair as she bounced her foot, and pulled a pack of cigarettes and lighter from her purse. She paused, and after a thought, placed two in her mouth and lit them together. Then she plucked one away with her manicured nails and held it out for Arthur. 

He slipped her a subtle look before taking it, and she watched him as he looked down at the cigarette, its filter stained purple-red from her lips, before wetting his own lips with his tongue and bringing it to his mouth. He closed his eyes to savor the taste when he inhaled, and Robin smiled again.

The hour was early, and already she had smiled more that night then she had the entire week before. Whatever doubts she’d had vanished then, and she turned and looked once more at the farmer, ready to hear his promise for the future.


	2. A Deceitful Woman

Jules was already there when she got to the airport, duffle slung over his shoulder, leaning against the staircase railing. She had been wrapped up in the Bessie Smith playing on her radio, but the sight of his uniform, starched on his straight-backed frame, jolted her out of her daydreams. He must have been there a while to have decided it was worth it to walk the quarter mile from the terminal to meet her here. 

She parked in a space just around the corner and got out to pop the trunk, but when he got to the car he slung his bag into the back seat. Robin closed the trunk sharply, a not-quite-slam, and the two shared a weary look, before he stepped to her and folded his arms around her back. 

“Sorry I’m late,” she said.

“The flight got in early.”

She turned her head and he kissed her cheek. He wasn’t angry. Why wasn’t he angry, Robin wondered, as she walked around the car to the driver’s side door. She would have been in his place. Did he expect it of her? Or did he just not care? Or was he just so dedicated to his disguise that he couldn’t even be petty when they were alone?

Shouldn’t I drive?” He asked. He pulled his beret off his head and rolled it in his hands, looking around the empty garage as if someone might jump out from behind the corner to catch them in their social deviance.

Robin ignored the question and slid into the seat. After a pause, Jules, followed suit.

They settled into the heavy, pressing quiet that they’d become accustomed to. It wasn’t until they got on the highway that Robin asked about Hong Kong. Jules answered a little. There was a lot he wasn’t saying, she could tell from the halting, uneven pacing of his words. She let it be; it was better for her not to hear.

She glanced out the window, peeking at the city below. Skyscrapers and factories on one side, apartments on the other. The glassy river, with lace edges of ice at the shoreline. In the distance, the marble obelisk, glaring in the sun.

He asked her about home, and she struggled to find interesting facts to make her life seem full. She described the details of her latest case, leaving out both the fact that she’d lost, and that the loss had cost her job. She mentioned the price of plutonium spiking again, and the duck tour that had sunk in the river. Jules asked if they’d survived and she told him they had. He nodded.

“Those things are easy to escape.”

She slipped the lie she’d practiced in on the end. She was a good liar, but Jules knew that. He’d been lying with her for five years now. She was afraid the reediness in her voice would give her nerves away.

“I joined a book club, by the way. Wednesday nights. You can fend for yourself food-wise, right hon?” She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. His head snapped up from looking at his lap. His brow was furrowed, stretching his forehead and making it seem bigger that it already was. She let out a small breath. He’d been distracted. Good.

“I don’t like that idea, Robin.” 

Maybe not so good.

“Well I’m doing it.”

“Heading downtown to the library after dark, just to sit around gossiping about Miss Marple’s latest?”

“It’s in Walden and we don't read - ugh - we read classics. Right now we’re doing W-” she almost said Walt Whitman, but quickly changed her track. That would get him suspicious for different reasons. “Wuthering Heights.”

Jules was silent, finding nothing immediate to criticize.

“Downtown isn’t so dangerous, Jules. If you’re smart. You forget we used to live there.”

“ _You_ used to live there.” His voice was quiet, soft, but is stabbed like a dagger.

We. She’d said _we_. A small infraction, which slipped out while she was distracted by other things, but still. She’d broken the unspoken rule to never mention his sister. The Delilah Taboo. 

The quiet closed in after that, and the two of them let the heat of their almost-argument fade, calmed by the rhythmic passing of light and shadow as they wove past the concrete supports, wind hissing through the lower level of the highway like it was a dark cave.

“That’s fine,” he finally said.

“I know it’s fine.”

“Robin...”

Robin resisted the urge to make an exasperated noise. Jules was, if nothing else, a decent human being. He deserved to enjoy his furlough.

“...Look.” He spoke again, and this time it was he that sounded nervous. “Look I’m...I’m just going to say it. I think we should have a baby.”

“What?” Robin turned to look at him. He had set his jaw and extended his neck, trying to make his chin look strong. “A _baby_.”

“Don’t you want one?”

“I-shit!” Robin swerved hard, forcing her way into the left lane just as it peeled away from the freeway and onto an exit ramp. She’d almost missed her turn. The car she’d cut off honked at her and she stuck her hand out the window and waved, waggling her fingers. She looked back at Jules. He released his grip on the dashboard. “I hadn’t thought about it. No real reason to.”

“No reason to start a family with your husband?”

“Kind of hard when he’s playing soldier with a bunch of boys half-way across the world, isn’t it?”

She saw him turn his face sharply towards her, but she kept her eyes on the road. They slipped down the ramp and Lexington rose around them, its smoke stained brownstones crowding them. She turned northwards.

“You think I enjoy it?”

“We used to paint picket signs together, Jules. I don’t know what to think.”

“I do what I have to. One of us has to keep up appearances.”

Robin didn’t say anything. She could’ve; she knew exactly what to say next. The two of them had the script to this conversation worked out to a T. Instead, she watched as buildings gave way first to suburbs, then to trees, wet black bark popping against the new snow. Bing Crosby and his “White Christmas” had become impossible to escape lately.

After a moment, he responded, dead voiced.

“I’m sorry.” He wasn’t. “It’s just...this? What we have? Don’t you want more than this?”

Robin opened her mouth to speak but felt her throat suddenly tighten and her eyes grow hot. She closed it, and quietly nodded. She squinted at the road.

“Something has to make us a family.” He turned and looked out the passenger side window they crested the quaint little bridge and the sign came into view, the sun setting over the gilded lettering.

They were home.


End file.
